Letter: Losing ground in historic preservation

Posted: January 16, 2014 - 9:10pm

I agree the state Capitol is stunning and support any effort to get our newly renovated Statehouse designated as a “world heritage site.”

But Elizabeth Watson’s assessment and comment on Topeka that “... you have so many wonderful old buildings” was interesting. Wow! She should have seen the ones we neglected, ignored and demolished, and then replaced with new structures or with parking lots.

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living in the street, shoe the children with no shoes on their feet..Steve Miller. Been along time since I heard the song, so I may not have it all. Kneel at the Cross give your idols up, look unto realms above. In as much as you do to others you do to Me- Christ. Feed the poor or preserve a building, the choice should be a no- brainer, but we're seeing the results of what the Word calls being beyond "natural feeling". Empathy for fellow humans is replaced by a overriding concern for man-made creations.
Not that we should not take care of our structures, but that shouldn't be our main focus.

There are many nice buildings, but we should not ham string our future by always keeping the past. If a building is truly historic, then it also should be rare. We should not just set out and preserve every building over 60 years old. If we do, then it loses its meaning.

If anything, we need to stop adding buildings to historic registries and review the ones we have to see if they are really historic. Take the Richtie House. First house in Topeka. Underground Railroad stop. But honestly, is it really all that historic? It was not the first house ever built anywhere or the first Railroad stop. And as a result of its historic nature, the houses on each side had to be bought because they were within so much distance to the historic property that the owners of those houses would not be able to do anything to their own houses due to requirements of historic buildings.

Thus as we add more and more, we will end up limiting what we can do in the future. Initially at 10th & Kansas, the property owner we denied a permit to demolish his buildings because they were within so many feet of the historic Eisenhower building.